I wasn't even going to bother with this month's issue of Christianity Today because there's like, an old-fashioned football guy on the cover. Taking a closer look, he's a statue, fittingly so, because the cover story is about idolizing football. Not a vice of mine!

But a catholic deacon in SLC

...
(I can transliterate Gk. easily enough to come up with his blog title) ... references an article and got me past the magazine's cover. And I shall read that article as Augustinianism is en vogue today, what with Reformed Theology making a comeback and BXVI's pontificate.

There is an article of interest on Saint John's Bible. I blogged about that project and actually saw a couple of books, what's available now? Gospels/Acts, Psalms ... in the NRSV, why?! ... in a retail bookstore, almost $70 a piece.

But the article that I really appreciated is the editorial on Israel, "What It Means to Love Israel":

Mainline Protestant partisans of Palestinian "liberation" frequently dismiss Christian support for Israel because of its association with dispensationalism. Yet dispensationalists make up only 10 percent of America's 52 million white¹ adult evangelicals ...

The key complaint offered against dispensationalists is that they talk as though God had separate plans for saving Israel and the church. And contemporary Reformed Christians² are accused of having a "replacement theology" in which the church takes the place of Israel, inheriting all of God's promises with no remainder for the Jewish people.

Gentile Christians do not replace the Jews, but are joint heirs³ and wild branches grafted onto the Jewish olive tree.

The need to learn how Judaism and the Jewish people understand themselves.⁴

Hey, I've been in love with the Holy Land since our trip there, not because it figures into my eschatology.

¹ I don't even want to know!
² Pre-conciliar Catholicism, more than just accused.
³ "New Perspective on Paul" comes in handy.
⁴ Easier said than done, but I'm on it.